Monday, March 7

Shapiroesque Review

Someone recommended to me the book If on a winter's night a traveler, by Italo Calvino, who, as might be expected from the name, is an Italian. Those of you who have read your history are probably aware that the Italians were Fascist during World War II, but if I understand correctly that had more to do with train schedules than anti-Semitism.

Chapter one was very confusing. It didn't sound like a novel at all. First chapters are supposed to introduce interesting characters and lay the groundwork for their plots, but this seemed more like a Forward or something, plus it was really patronizing even if you're not 1L Harvard Law. I thought there might have been a printing error, so I skipped ahead to chapter two. It was all right, I guess, and I was just starting to get interested in what was happening when it ended, and chapter three turned out to be something else entirely, like it wasn't even the same book. I kept jumping forward and the whole book was like that. This is the sort of rubbish the Left is always trying to tell us has "deeper meaning" when it doesn't even make sense. Cristo should wrap this book, then throw it away after he's conned the Arts Crowd into paying him for it. I don't think it's a coincidence that Europe just doesn't get it.